Page 65 of Widow

As I got closer, I could see it moving. It was like a giant cocoon, and something was inside it. A whimper came from inside, and I stopped walking. I turned my ear toward it to listen more carefully.

Whatever was inside the cocoon whimpered again.

It could have been a trap. I found a rock, picked it up, and chucked it. The cocoon jerked like the creature was turning around.

It growled. Holy shit, it was Ric. I'd know that growl anywhere, even though it was muffled.

I rushed forward and tried to figure out how to get him down. Where the hell was Lia? Was she strung up in a tree somewhere too?

I started to climb the tree, something I hadn't done since I was a boy. It was a lot more difficult than I remembered. Or I was just a lot weaker. Wings would come in really handy.

The bark scratched my hands, and I dug in my boots to give myself enough leverage to reach the first branch. I pulled myself up, all the pullups I did daily paying off. Now I felt a little less vain at the hundred I did in the doorway of my bedroom every morning.

"I'm coming. Stay calm." He growled again but stopped moving around.

I used the branches to pull myself up onto the limb he was hanging from. Upon closer inspection, the cocoon he was in was made of spiderwebs.

Fuck.

A million thoughts crossed my mind. Either Lia's spiders were out, or the worst possible scenario ever had occurred: the other Widows had found her.

I pulled my blade out of my waistband and began sawing at the strings that were attached to the limb. The web was strong and thick. It almost felt like I was sawing wood with my knife.

After several minutes, the strings began to give way, the cocoon fell to the ground, and Ric yelped. I climbed out of the tree and began cutting a hole in it. Hopefully, I didn't cut Ric.

"Almost there, buddy." I was breathing heavily by the time I put a small hole in the thick material.

Those bitches could make a killing on Earth with the shit.

A claw poked through the hole and started scratching up a storm. I put my knife away and waited for him to break himself free. Once he did, he quickly shifted back to his human form.

"They got her." He grabbed onto the front of my shirt, panic in his eyes. "Her spiders helped do this to me."

My eyes widened. "They didn't kill you?" I was in too much shock to realize how stupid my question was. Of course they didn't kill him; he was standing right in front of me.

He shook his head and then put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. I couldn't imagine that it had been easy to breathe inside of that thing.

"They were going to kill me, but Lia's spiders stopped them." Ric stood up straight and looked around. "Where's Lucifer?"

"About that… the passage to the mountain was only about three feet wide. He didn't feel comfortable with us all going through. So he took off on his own."

Ric cursed under his breath and ran two hands over his shaved head. "We can't wait for him to get back to save her. Her eyes went black again, and she..." He shut his eyes. "She just followed them and left the spiders to take care of me."

"We're no match for those spiders. Especially not me." I sighed, resigned with the fact that I might, in fact, die. For good this time. "Where's Picard? He wasn't in the cave."

Ric cursed again and then jogged towards the cave entrance. I followed but didn't go inside. He came back out a minute later, looking pale. I raised my eyebrows in question.

"I don't know where he is. Sometimes he wanders off."

Yeah, that was it; he had just wandered off.

* * *

Since the cavewasn't far, we went back to leave a note for Lucifer. The problem was, we didn't have any paper or anything to write with.

"Check Lia's bag; she had toilet paper. Maybe she has something to write with. Women like to carry lots of shit around with them, right?" Ric was searching through his bag for any clue about where Picard had run off to.

I grabbed Lia's pack and began searching. Her toiletry bag had an eyeliner, which would do the trick. I took a shirt and dusted the floor.

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